1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an image processing system including a plurality of network-connected image forming apparatuses and record-processing record data by the use of at least two of the plurality of image forming apparatuses, a control method therefor and a control program therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In image forming apparatuses such as copying machines and printers, there has heretofore been a contract form in which accounting is done for each print. In an accounting system for conventional image forming apparatuses, as shown in FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings, it is often the case that for each kind of machine, a unit cost per print is predetermined.
As a matter of course, a difference comes out in this unit cost of print depending on the types of apparatuses, the sizes of printing paper and the manner of printing (such as two sides). The example shown in FIG. 1 is an example in which the unit cost is divided broadly by whether the apparatus is a black-and-white one or a color one, and thereafter is subdivided by the type of sheet. The reason why the unit cost thus becomes different depending on the types of apparatuses, the sizes of printing paper and the manner of printing is that the rates of consumption of expendables such as toners and photosensitive drums become different. Usually, the counter of an image forming apparatus is counted up for each print, where after a serviceman reads the count value thereof or an accounting server on the network totalizes the count values of the counters of image forming apparatuses on the network through a network protocol, whereby a charge per print is claimed to a user.
On the other hand, in response to the flow of systematization in recent years, almost all image forming apparatuses are digitized and have become connectable to the network. Many of these image forming apparatuses are connected to the LAN of each user and have been designed to be integrally controlled/managed by PC or the server or the like.
In this manner, the image forming apparatuses are connected to the network and managed integrally, whereby an image processing system which has not heretofore been seen has come out. That is, such processing as                effecting one kind of processing by distributing it to two or more image forming apparatuses, or        effecting the exchanges of data among image forming apparatuses produced by different manufacturershas become possible and as a result, convenience on the part of the user can be greatly improved. Particularly, if an image recording process can be automatically distributed to a plurality of image forming apparatuses and carried out thereby, a print job can be distributed among optimum image processing apparatuses without troubling the user in the case of a great deal of print of black-and-white/color mixed print or the like, and distributed recording can be effected.        
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H07-64744 or Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H11-203082 discloses a technique of distributing a print job among a plurality of network printers on the basis of resource information describing the capability of printers on the network.
As items which become standards in the print job distributing process in distributed recording, mention may be made of:                the current state of each image forming apparatus;        the reliability of each image forming apparatus;        the performance of each image forming apparatus;        the print unit cost of each image forming apparatus, etc.        
For example, under an environment as shown in FIG. 2 of the accompanying drawings wherein on LAN 1, a terminal 10 (such as PC) as an image recording client, a printer server 14 and a plurality of printers (11: printer A, 12: printer B, and 13: printer C) are network connected, such control as shown in FIG. 3 of the accompanying drawings can be effected to thereby effect distributed recording.
The control of FIG. 3 shows the flow of the entire distributed recording, and the control of FIG. 3 can be effected, for example, by the terminal 10 or the liaison processing of the terminal 10 and a printer server 14. When at a step S301, a printing command is inputted at the terminal 10 and a request for print is generated, the processing of a step S302 and subsequent steps is executed.
At the step S302, the current states of the printers 11 to 13 are grasped by the use of a suitable network print protocol. The states of the printers 11 to 13 to be grasped here include whether they are in print job processing, whether the printers are in on-line state and are available (whether they are jammed), etc.
At a step S303, whether data to be printed is data which should be subjected to distributed processing is determined. The standard of this determination is arbitrary, but at the step S303, for example, whether the number of sheets to be printed is great (e.g. several hundreds of pages or more), whether for a mixture of color pages and monochromatic pages or the like, printing is impossible by a single printer, or whether processing which can be executed only by a particular printer, for example, aftertreatment such as binding, is designated, or the like can be determined.
At a step S304, job dividing conditions for executing distributed processing are read. To divide a job into a plurality, the result of division becomes different in accordance with a factor to give priority to, such as running cost priority, image quality priority or output speed priority, but here, the job dividing conditions are the designated data of these priority conditions preset by the user or the like.
At a step S305, the profile of each printer is read. This profile is what describes the capability of the printers on the network (which corresponds to the above-mentioned resource information), and it is to be understood that the profile is obtained from each printer at real time by the use of a suitable network print protocol, or is prepared in advance as part of system information in OS.
Here, the printer profile read from each printer includes color/black-and-white processing ability, a recording speed, accounting conditions (running cost: ¥20 per A4 single side, etc.), the presence or absence of an aftertreatment apparatus (such as a sorter or a stapler), the rate of jam, the rate of operation, etc. Among these, the accounting condition is determined by how much a counter in the printer is counted up, and each printer peculiarly has the count-up amount.
In the example of the profile shown in FIG. 3, the printer A is a color printer, is such that the printing speed thereof is 20 cpm, and the unit cost per A4 size sheet is ¥20. In FIG. 3, only the profile of the printer A is shown, but of course, about the other printers, similar profiles are read.
At a step S306, an optimum printer which can distribute and process a job by the use of such conditions as the current state, reliability, performance and unit cost of each of the above described printers is selected, and at a step S307, a suitable dialog is displayed on the display of the terminal 10 to thereby offer the user a printer which can be used for distributed processing. If at this time, there are plural sets of available printers, all of them may be displayed.
When at a step S308, the user selects a combination of particular printers (or a single printer in a case where distributed processing is not executed) from offered choices, at a step S309, the job is divided by the use of the aforementioned dividing condition and is transmitted to the selected printer or printers on the basis of a predetermined network print protocol. Thereafter, at a step S310, the actual printing process is carried out in each printer.
As described above, under the environment in which the printers are network-connected, it is often the case that use is made of a network print protocol which does not depend on a particular manufacturer's specification, and in that case, the exchanges of data are effected between image forming apparatuses produced by different makers. Thereby the range of the user's selection of actually used image forming apparatuses is widened, and the user can select an image processing apparatus connected to LAN from various conditions.
That is, in the system wherein the printers are network-connected as described above, the user can select a desired printer and accordingly, under the user's LAN environment, it shows a situation in which the printer is selected. That is, heretofore, each maker, if he has only provided the user with a better system with only his image processing apparatus as a target, has been able to maintain his predominance in the user even if a plurality of manufacturers are mixedly present in the user's LAN environment. In the future, however, unless any maker can provide information/environment/apparatus more attractable to the user, there comes out the possibility that even if the manufacturer supplies them, they will not be utilized.
On the other hand, when viewed from the technical side of the image forming apparatuses, the situation is such that an extreme discrimination in quality among the apparatuses cannot be made, and a distinction in the above-mentioned “reliability” and “performance” has become difficult to make. Regarding the “unit cost” as the remaining distinction item, as shown in FIG. 1, the price is determined by the cost when the apparatus is used as a single unit, and again in this item, the situation is such that a distinction is difficult to make. It is disadvantageous to makers that the distinction is difficult to make as described above. Accordingly, if under the network environment as noted above, there is a setup for appealing the predominance of one's own image forming apparatus by some technique, and making the user select one's own image forming apparatus, chances for one's own image forming apparatus to be used will increase.
Under the network environment as noted above, it is preferable to have only one's own image forming apparatus singly used, but it will be preferable if even in the case of the distributed recording process, there is such a setup that chances for one's own image forming apparatus to be used as one of a plurality of image forming apparatuses increases any more.